Laminar-flow plasma jet of favorable energy distribution and very low noise could be generated at atmospheric pressure with argon or a mixture of argon and nitrogen as the working gases.The laminar plasma jet showed a length of about 7 times than that of a turbulent one,because of the reduced air entrainment.Experimental results confirmed that the laminar plasma jet could only be generated by suppressing the flow surging and whipping with a reasonable torch structure under a set of well balanced gas feeding and power conditions.Simulated temperature distribution of plasma jet indicated that a laminar plasma jet has a relatively centralized energy distribution in its radial direction and greatly reduced temperature gradient in the axial direction.This could be favorable for the control of treatment temperature,region and stress conditions of material when the laminar jet is used for materials surface processing.